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MaiqTheTrue

Zensunni Wanderer

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joined 2022 November 02 23:32:06 UTC 

				
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MaiqTheTrue


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Zensunni Wanderer

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 November 02 23:32:06 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The problem is that banning discussions not only forbids bad ideas, but almost all new ideas.  We don’t therefore progress as fast as we might as good ideas are kept out of discussions and therefore aren’t tried.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don’t see even then why such a thing would be controversial.  If you won’t arrest people committing crimes, it seems really strange to object that other people are.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for May 26, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That and American law enforcement is kinda lax on consumer protection laws.  A lot of consumer products are legal here and illegal elsewhere, a lot of chemicals are forbidden in foods in Europe that are perfectly fine in America, and Europe takes consumer privacy much more seriously than Americans do.  As such, the odds of what’s being done being illegal, the person getting caught, and serious consequences following are slim to none in the USA.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I see the Trump bit as alliance, and not really endorsement.  It’s not that religion isn’t strong, but that they’re not powerful enough to win without allies who share their goals.  Religion has what it always does — jihad.  Religious groups tend to be much more likely to go scorched earth, to be willing to give up everything for a win.  Everyone else has a price.  The business community will stop when it becomes clear they’ll lose their money if they continue.  People seeking power will align with the winning side eventually.


And I think what’s happening on the right is people learning to use social power effectively .  They know that they can cut woke down at the knees by cutting off the money.  They know that if they can make sales drop 20% they get the behavior to stop.  They’re no longer afraid of the beast before them.  I’m not sure that the woke are going to do as well as people think they will.  They’re used to calling the shots with little opposition, and simply getting their way.  Businesses aren’t going to be nearly as eager to anger Americaners as they’ve shown that they can turn the screws equally as well as the left can.  Which, depending on what wokies do next could make the thing shift.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would argue it might, but I’m not sure.  In regards the Chinese Room, I would say the system “understands” to the degree that it can use information to solve an unknown problem.  If I can speak Chinese myself, then I should be able to go off script a bit.  If you asked me how much something costs in French, I could learn to plug in the expected answers.  But I don’t think anyone wouconfuse that with “understanding” unless I could take that and use it.  Can I add up prices, make change?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think the question of legitimacy and power are separated here.  Power rests with whoever can bring force to bear on the population.  If you’re in a weak enough state, power might well rest with gangs.  They wouldn’t be legitimate, obviously, but they’d have power.  Legitimacy comes from whatever legal theory gives the rulers the right to rule.  David could rule because God chose him as head of a theocratic state.  Charles III rules because he’s the eldest son of the former Queen.  Biden rules as President because he won the election and therefore has the right to the office.


Law is almost always an idealist thing.  It gives rules but rules are merely the map and assume that everybody is doing exactly what they’re supposed to do and further that the enforcement and judicial branches are not compromised.  This rarely happens perfectly simply because laws generally forbid things that people very much want to do.  Businesses want to skirt labor laws (paid breaks and lunches are expensive.  OSHA laws can be expensive to follow as well).  Dumping stuff in the river is much cheaper than recapture.  So there’s always an incentive to try to negate any laws that you don’t want to follow.  As such a lot of laws simply aren’t enforced or if the cops bother judges overturn them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah her demeanor isn’t frightened at all.  Someone frightened would be looking for a way to leave the situation.  She was pressing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think a lot of people end up cowed because they at least perceive they have something to lose by defecting.  If you’re PMC especially, the prospect of jail is much more scary because it’s not just jail, but a complete economic and social death sentence.  You’ll lose most of that comfortable lifestyle, the good job as an apperachnik, the nice house, the nice car, respect and social standing.  Rebellion takes that, if you’re arrested.  Felons have very few options— most of them terrible— for work.  Respectable places don’t want you.  The wages (n.b. The felon generally must take an hourly wage) is generally barely a survival wage.  Most respectable people don’t hang around with felons either.


With that much to lose, most of those raised PMC are raised with a very strong dose of “obey the law and be a good boy.”  Other classes don’t.  Someone who’s in the working class thumbs their nose at authorities all the time.  They aren’t really the worse for it.  If you worked for a survival wage at QuikTrip before you got arrested, you aren’t that much worse to work at QT afterwards.  Your shitty house and car aren’t going to get worse.  As such the hold the system has on you is much lighter.  And at least in America, the bulk of the COVID rebellion came from such stock — people with nothing much to lose.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You could get MSP by giving them a stake in the system.  I think that’s why the PMC is full of people who don’t understand rules don’t work magically is because they’re raised to understand that following the rules and doing what they’re told pays off, not just legally but in most situations.  They got into good schools by ticking boxes, they were allowed special privileges for being teachers pet, they get kudos at work for doing what the boss wants.  Obedience has worked well for them, and contrary wise breaking the rules has generally been punished.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It’s not even really a hypothesis.  It’s not coming from them actually talking to the right.  The “hypothesis” is “we’re clearly better in every way, so why won’t they vote for us,” with the only answers being things like FOX News, racism, and poor education— all things that, unsurprisingly, they can’t do anything about.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
They likely do it in response to other customers complaining about cold coffee.  The vast majority of people buying coffee in any drive thru are going to drink it at work which might be over half an hour away.  If they serve coffee cool enough to drink immediately, they lose the people who want it for the office.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
How does any functioning adult buy a boiling hot beverage and immediately put it between her knees?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think part of it is that a good portion of this is a back door way of regulating things.  It would be almost impossible to pass some of these rulings legislatively.  No government is going to waste time regulating the temperature of coffee.  But the fear of lawsuits can have the same effect without all that nasty legislation that your opponent can use against your tribe.  Most anti discrimination stuff is actually like this.  It’s illegal to refuse to hire on the basis of certain characteristics.  The law as written is unenforceable (hence the police don’t randomly inspect for diversity).  But, if you’re [minority] and you think you’re being discriminated against, you can sue them (free to you, and expensive enough to them that they’ll often settle) giving those who sue for damages a payday.  Mostly it’s a way to enforce laws that would Be impossible to enforce or legislate by giving citizens a payday for suing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 29, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have always seen war as a very necessary evil.  We shouldn’t seek it, but at the same time, there’s always barbarians at the gates, and peace is more often than not followed by those barbarians thirsting for the blood of a people who removed the cannons in favor of flower pots, who’d beaten their swords into plows and didn’t teach their kids to fight.


War is certainly hell, but I think the slavery bought by refusing to fight is just as bad.  Watching your country ravaged and looted is bad, as is the hunger that follows.  What concerns me hear is that Ukraine and (I suspect) Taiwan are the first of several wars that will result from the end of Pax Americana just as centuries of warfare followed the end of Pax Romana.  Porcelain is great, but I think because we’re in the heart of the Atlanticist Empire, and don’t see the problems, that we assume we’re immune from nature’s law of tooth and fang.  You cannot be weak.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Jesus, Stalin, and Hitler
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think looking objectively at the problem, I think that the issue lies at the point where Christians basically dropped any sort of orthopraxy to their beliefs.  Which seems to be the issue because by doing so, daily reminders to oneself that God is real don’t happen.


On the old subreddit there was a post about Orthodox Judaism, and why it remained and why those Jews didn’t assimilate.  The answer was, essentially that to live as an Orthodox Jew was to be constantly reminded of that fundamental fact.  You couldn’t eat without thinking about it, because there are Kosher laws.  You couldn’t get dressed without thinking about it, because you’re looking at the labels to be sure the cloth is only one type.  There are special prayers for everything down to praising god for giving you the means to relieve yourself.  This makes belief just part of the life — you are doing the things and thinking about God and what God wants.  This cannot help but inspire the confidence that you are in the presence of God.


By contrast, especially for the low church Protestant, there’s no requirement for anything, and in fact the kinds of things mentioned above are frowned upon unless they’re spontaneous and you want to do them.  So then when does someone raised in this sort of religion think about God?  Sunday, maybe a Wednesday night service, but that’s really it.  And these events are not ordinary parts of the day, they exist outside of it, in a special place called church wearing special clothes, it’s not ordinary life, it’s a field trip.  And when you have to make trips to see god, he becomes less a natural part of your life.  A long distance relationship you don’t think about except when you mentally visit or maybe send a quick prayer when you think about it.  Most of the rest of your life is spent in this world where you think about business and kids and school and politics and ordinary life.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Morality is Accidental & Self-Congratulatory
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The counterpoint is that it didn’t just happen once, but several times.  Slavery is a good example, but there are lots of others.  Wars of conquest for the most part stopped once the region industrialized and therefore didn’t need to annex more land to get more food.  Animal welfare and animal rights began once food became plentiful enough that people would be able to be choosy about food.  Environmentalist ideas came at the beginning of globalization when it was possible to simply import industrial output.


I don’t think such a pattern proves a monocausal system, but it’s common enough that I find the idea to hold a bit of water.  In fact, I think the lack of such concerns before the technology to replace those things came into existence is equally compelling.  There are no ancient civilizations that opposed slavery.  There were none that respected the idea of human rights as we know them until the last 500 years.  To put it bluntly, until 500 years ago, the ideas that would make you a war criminal or a despot were mainstream.  The Romans thought very little about walking the roads and seeing (and hearing) the moans of men nearly flogged to death before being nailed to pieces of wood.  They thought nothing of watching people die in an arena for entertainment.  We not only don’t publicly execute, but we make it as painless as possible and are squeamish about that.  Human nature didn’t change, our ability to maintain control without brutality made it possible to consider a world in which the events depicted in the Passion of Christ were no longer necessary.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Jesus, Stalin, and Hitler
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think a huge issue is just how far it’s drifted from anything remotely like what the very early church taught.  And I think therein lies the problem.  Divorced from the roots, what remains is credalism— as long as you confess the Nicean Creed then all is well.  I don’t think the apostles had such a thing in mind.  A vague belief about a heavenly home, a thought that simply believing the “right” things about god— this isn’t what Jesus taught. All your heart, soul and mind isn’t “just pray to Jesus and do an altar call.”


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Morality is Accidental & Self-Congratulatory
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would also point out that this was probably the first time in history that printing presses and art and written law codes were common enough that you didn’t need to torture as much.  We also generally had enough surplus food that prison as punishment (at least for the nobility) was plausible.


Although, I’d ask the question in reverse.  If human nature always had the capacity for such empathy, where were the people who were protesting the cruelty?  If (and I agree it’s true) a Roman could consider torture cruel, where were the counter-voices.  Where was the Roman Peter Singer writing against using animals for food or beasts of burden?  Where were the people protesting or writing against public executions?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 29, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think it’s also a part of the de masculinization of modern American and European culture in which all risk of any sort are horrific and to be avoided even at the cost of actually living.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 29, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf


According to this study, Americans themselves have very little influence on the direction the country actually goes.


I’m not democracolatrous, though.  The form of government we have in our country matters much less than people give it credit for.  A highly competent king or emperor or oligarchy would do just as well.  What I don’t like is the obvious incompetence, lack of thought or forethought into issues.  Instead of that we have oligarchs who understand nothing giving us the veneer of democracy wrapped in WWE theatrics.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 29, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Alternative being that men are choosing more lethal means because they don’t anticipate a last minute rescue.  I’ve known a woman with mental illness who’s attempted suicide several times — and every time she did it, she’d call someone or attempt in such a way that she’d be discovered quickly.  In other words, the attempt isn’t exactly an attempt, it’s a cry for help and attention.  People who want to die will die.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 29, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
But it’s something they’ve sort of deliberately created for themselves.  Conservatives have known for a long time that success in PMC and white colar work means being rather closeted about things coded conservative.  It actually somewhat starts in college where expressing even mild disagreement with the ideas of modern progressive ideology is going to get you shunned and if you’re dumb enough to turn in a paper that expresses a conservative opinion you get worse grades.  In the workplace, almost any such expression will be seen as negative and possibly get you reported to HR.  As such, modern conservatives in the modern workplace, or at least the modern, urban respectable workplace are as closeted as gays were in the 1990s.  You thought long and hard before telling people in your social circle and probably didn’t tell people in your professional circle because even though it’s officially tolerated, it would be risky.


As such, even though there are probably people in their social circles who are conservative, those people have learned to clam up.  They were in the room when the “right” — pro-abortion— move was made.  They just didn’t want the blowback from being the conservative in the room.  I guarantee (especially given that the Budweiser part of InBev is in the midwestern largely Catholic city of St. Louis) that someone in that room knew the Mulvaney cans were a terrible idea that would cause backlash.  They said nothing because being anti-trans is dangerous to their career.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 29, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think this is one of the tragedies of globalization.  Diversity in the no the-plastic sense has been so reduced that unless you have the time and money to get far from trade routes, you’ll only really see the touristy Disney-fied versions of the country you’re visiting.  To me, even bothering to look for such things isn’t worth the time simply because it’s so rare that unless you have tons of free time and money, you won’t actually find it.


The MOPs process often means that the very act of discovery (especially if you tell others about that place) tends to quickly destroy them.  This happens a lot with natural wonders and beaches.  Once it hits the internet, everyone looking for things to do that aren’t crowded and full of consumerism go there, quickly turning it into the thing they were trying to avoid.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 29, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I big part of this is perception though.


It’s seen as working as most jobs (and yes, motherhood is a job) are.  The thing of any of the jobs you choose to do (or in earlier eras were thrust upon you) were the reasons behind them.  Mothers are raising the next generation of humans.  Rocket engineers are building things that can take us to the stars.  Cops and soldiers keep people safe.  Teachers are passing down critical knowledge to future generations.  See the difference?  Focus on the tasks and even the most important jobs will seem like drudgery.  I mean, the President is in boring ass meetings with people he has to pretend to like all day, broken up by reading really complex boring reports.  Those are the tasks, but the job is to lead the entire country.


There’s mystique to any set of tasks.  From the daily, they’re all boring.  But the mystique comes from the importance of the job that requires you to do the tasks.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 29, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think the best answer is to reject the idea that these identities exist and get others to do the same.  Identity politics are strengthened by people accepting the premise as most ideological constructs do.  If you’re living in a country that’s based on religious ideals, playing in that sandbox makes it impossible to break out.  If I accept that religion is real and should be a part of state government, then there’s no outside position.  I might reject the ideas of Shariah, but if I’m rejecting them to implement the Talmud or Catholic Canons or something, we’ve already agreed on Theocracy, and the legitimacy of theocracy, we’re just arguing about the one on top.